Kitchen design apps: how far do they actually get you?

10 September 2026 · The Home Upgrade Co.

Most people planning a kitchen have already spent an evening dragging units around in a free planner. They are genuinely useful for working out what you like. They are not a design, and the gap between the two is where kitchens go wrong.

Are kitchen design apps any good?

For deciding what you like, yes, genuinely. For deciding what will fit and work in your actual room, no, because they take your measurements on trust.

An app will happily draw a layout that cannot be built, because it does not know where your soil pipe runs or that one wall bows by twenty millimetres.

Used as a mood board with dimensions attached, they are a good use of an evening. Used as a plan, they are the reason some kitchens arrive and do not fit.

What do the apps get right?

Style, colour and rough layout. Seeing a shaker door beside a dark worktop tells you something real about whether you want it.

They are also good for arguing with your other half in advance rather than in a showroom, which is worth more than it sounds.

And they get you thinking in terms of runs and zones rather than individual units, which makes the conversation at a design visit far quicker.

Where do online planners fall down?

On the things that decide whether a kitchen works: services, clearances, out of square walls, ceiling height changes and where the doors and windows actually sit.

Every planner assumes square walls and standard heights. Very few Irish houses oblige, and older houses almost never do.

They also assume you can move a sink freely. Moving plumbing and waste is one of the biggest single costs in a kitchen and the app does not mention it.

What measurements decide whether a layout works?

Clearances more than anything: the gap between runs, the space a door or appliance needs to open, and whether two people can pass while one is cooking.

Get the walkway between an island and a run wrong and you have a kitchen that photographs well and is unpleasant to cook in.

Ceiling height, window sill height and the position of the consumer unit and boiler all constrain the design too, and none of them appear in a planner.

Can you design a kitchen without visiting a showroom?

Yes. What a showroom shows you is a kitchen built for a showroom, in a room that is not yours, under lighting that is not yours.

Samples brought to your house, against your floor and in your light, tell you more than a display kitchen does, because that is the actual context.

We wrote about this in more detail in our guide on whether you need to visit a kitchen showroom in Dublin.

What does a measured 3D design add that an app does not?

Certainty. Every dimension comes from your room rather than your estimate, so the kitchen that is drawn is the kitchen that can actually be built.

It also prices. A layout without an itemised quote against it is a picture, and pictures are where the gap between expectation and cost lives.

And it accounts for the things that are already in the room and are not moving: the boiler, the meter, the waste, the window you cannot lower.

Should you still play with an app first?

Absolutely. Come to a design visit with screenshots and a list of what you liked. It makes the visit faster and the first draft closer to right.

Nothing about using a planner is wasted. It is the step where you work out your taste, which is the part nobody can do for you.

Just do not order anything off the back of one without somebody measuring the room.

How the free 3D design works

We visit within two working days, measure every wall, and your 3D design and full itemised quote follow within a further two. It costs nothing.

You keep the plans whether or not you go ahead, there is no call-out fee and we do not chase. Twelve weeks from sign-off to a fitted kitchen.

Every kitchen is priced individually after that visit, which is why we do not publish prices. More on the process on our kitchen design page.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free kitchen design app worth using?

Several are fine for style and rough layout. Treat any of them as a mood board, because none of them know the real dimensions of your room.

Do you have to pay for a kitchen design?

Not with us. The visit, the measuring, the 3D design and the itemised quote are all free, and you keep the plans if you decide not to go ahead.

Can I design my own kitchen and have you build it?

Yes. Bring what you have drawn and we will measure the room and work from your layout, telling you where it needs adjusting to actually fit.

How accurate does a kitchen measurement need to be?

Accurate to a few millimetres, and taken in several places on each wall. Walls are rarely parallel, and the narrowest point is the one that matters.